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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Portugal and Africa: part I |
| Authors: | Cardoso, Carlos Gonzalez, David |
| Year: | 1990 |
| Periodical: | Zeitschrift für Afrikastudien |
| Issue: | 6 |
| Pages: | 5-14 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Africa Portugal colonial territories |
| Subjects: | decolonization colonialism |
| Abstract: | This paper examines some of the features that differentiate Portugal's historical relations with Africa from those that other European powers established with that continent. Favourable initial conditions were not translated, in the Portuguese case, into an early accumulation of colonial capital. Portugal remained behind other powers that developed their colonizing potentials later on, but more dynamically. Lacking resources with which to defend and exploit its large African territories, Portugal faced increasing difficulties to retain them and even to survive as an independent political entity, and these threats made it rely on foreign protection. Foreign dependence and economic deterioration reached a critical point at the turn of the last century, and Portugal's occupation of its African territories underlined the ancillary functions of this semi-colonized power, serving as a 'bridge' through which mainly non-Portuguese capital gained access to extensive African territories. The downfall of fascism in Portugal set a scenario that would render Portugal's decolonization process as peculiar as its prolongued colonialism had been. Future economic relations between Portugal and its former colonies in Africa will be mediated by a trilateral pattern in which the necessary financing will be provided by other more developed capitalist countries. Bibliogr., note, ref., sum. in German. |